The East Hawaii Cultural Center opens its new show — featuring Patrick Daniel Sarsfield, Vivian Ursula Bratton and Susumu Sakaguchi — with a reception today starting at 5:30 p.m.
The East Hawaii Cultural Center opens its new show — featuring Patrick Daniel Sarsfield, Vivian Ursula Bratton and Susumu Sakaguchi — with a reception today starting at 5:30 p.m.
The theme of Sakaguchi’s portion of the exhibit is “The Center of the Universe – A Process of Evolution in Images,” displaying images from his early works to current works. Over a period of 40 years, his paintings evolved from images of life under the sea, to land and sky images, realizing the urgency to care about this earth and the nature of beauty.
He was born in Japan at the end of World War II and immigrated to the U.S. in 1956. He grew up in downtown Los Angeles and at age 14 began to study fine arts at the Otis Institute of Arts, Arts Center and Chouinard Arts Institute. He enrolled in the California Institute of Arts Graduate School in 1971.
Sarsfield has labeled his entry “Zerbrechlich,” which means fragile in the German language.
“Just about anywhere in the world today there is some degree of danger / fear lurking someplace / someplaces more intense than others / some places still sacred … most if not all other places are defiled … my recent painting and sculpture dwell in this Zerbrechlich, fragile quality of all life / living things….existing … the fragile condition of ourselves and our planet earth,” said Sarsfield.
He grew up in “the European-like environment of the ’40s and ’50s San Francisco, its art museums like the De Young (the old one) in Golden Gate Park, the Steinhart Aquarium — Bufano, Gehry, Wilhelm Reich, my fellow street artists, my mom and dad and their beautiful simplicity of life … today Jose Parla, Antoni Tapies, of course Jean Michel Basquiat, Anselm Kiefer … always Rodin.”
Bratton’s “Impressions of Mauna Kea & Mauna Loa” is in the mauka gallery. She is a member of the Honolulu Printmakers, the Association of Hawaii Artists and a signature member of Pastel Artists of Hawaii. Her past commissions and purchases can be found in numerous collections in Alaska, Hawaii and internationally in the UK and China.
Her works on display will include pieces done in mixed media, prints and paintings of pastel and acrylic. She has received awards in all those categories, exhibiting in the Big Island, Maui, Honolulu, Alaska and internationally.
“We live on a beautiful, powerful and diverse island. The powerful images of Mauna Kea and the graceful slope of Mauna Loa are ever present. Their beauty and strength have inspired me to create this body of work. Their silhouette looms above our landscape, sub-alpine plants and fauna surround the foothills and display the ever changing landscape and diverse weather changes,” said the artist.
This exhibit will be on display until Sept. 26, open from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at 141 Kalakaua St. Call 961-5711.